1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to an accumulating apparatus for accumulating a negative film sheet-like holder fed from a feeding section for feeding the negative film holder in a direction transverse to an arrangement of film strips within the holder, the holder being capable of holding a plurality of negative film strips in parallel.
2. Description of the Related Art
An accumulating apparatus for a negative film holder of the above-noted type is operable to accumulate a plurality of sheet-like negative film holders 3 each of which holds a plurality of negative film strips 2 within a number of rows of pockets corresponding to the number of film strips in FIG. 3. Each film strip includes four to six frames and each film holder has been cut to have a certain number of rows of film pockets (the number corresponds, in general, to the number of film strips constituting together one `order` from the customer).
A conventional means or method for accumulating the above-described film holders is known from e.g. a Japanese published utility model gazette No. 62-39000.
That is, as shown in FIGS. 19(a) and (b), as a guide 150 capable of supporting right and left sides of a film holder 3 receives the film holder 3 holding film strips 2 from the feeding section, an endless belt 151 is driven to pull in this film holder 3 with the holder being maintained flat. With completion of this pull-in operation, as illustrated in FIG. 19(c), a lift bar 152 is lowered to drop the film holder 3 onto a stacker tray 153 disposed horizontally. Thereafter, as illustrated in FIG. 19(d), the lift bar 152 is raised to its original position for receiving a next film holder 3. In this manner, a plurality of sheet-like film holders 3 are stacked one on another with the holders being extended flat. Incidentally, according to the construction disclosed in the above-cited reference, the film holder 3 is caused to slide by its own weight. Whereas, the construction shown in FIG. 19 is modified such that the holder 3 is forcibly transported by means of the endless belt 151.
With the above-described conventional construction, however, the film holders are horizontally stacked in the flatly extended state, so that the stacker tray needs to be sized to accommodate the length of the holder in the transportation direction thereof. As a result, the entire accumulating apparatus tends to be enlarged. Hence, improvement has been desired in this respect.
The present invention addresses the above-described state of the art. A first object of the present invention is to provide an accumulating apparatus for a negative film holder which apparatus may reduce the space required for accumulating the negative film holders.
A second object of the invention is to achieve the first object while simplifying the construction for accumulating the negative film holders.
A third object of the invention is to achieve the first or second object while assuring stability of operations of the negative film holder accumulating apparatus.